Pleading the Fifth

The fifth amendment in the McPherson bill of rights must be, "You don't have to help someone if you are an idiot." Otherwise people wouldn't plead ignorance so much. This morning I was having trouble installing an application. I asked Grace how she installed it and she said Mom did it for her so she had no idea. Since Mom is always busy, I figured it would be best not to bother her. After my typical prodding and banging and replacing random important sounding files routine, I discovered that I was lacking "Microsoft.NET 3.5" (I had something like 1.44 B.C.) I took all the files off Grace's computer and replaced all my important looking files with those ones. (That disclaimer in the WINDOWS file that says "IF YOU REPLACE ANY OF THESE FILES YOUR COMPUTER MAY CEASE TO FUNCTION" is obviously nonsense)

Anyway, no cigar. I went downstairs to ask for help. I asked Mom and she naturally asked Andrew, since Andrew is the "smart" computer guy. Anyway after he said that of course I couldn't simply replace some files! This was a Process!! It's not that simple! I therefore asked him how to replace a process. No use. He had apparently heard that dealing with processes was difficult but he couldn't actually give me any useful advice.

Yeah, I eventually figured everything out on my own. After downloading a Microsoft.NET 3.5 installer and finding out it was a "Bootstrapper" (It sounds illegal but it isn't.) I downloaded a different installer and got it to work. Phew. Very exhausting. Just one of many good reasons that I did not go into computer science.

2.7%

Alright, if there are 10 people playing Mafia three times, what is the probability that one person is Mafia in all three games? Since there are 3 mafia, it comes out to 2.7%. Pretty long odds, but it happened yesterday. My brother Andrew somehow managed to pull an Ace all 3 times. I envy that kind of statistical defiance. I hate being a townsperson.

What I thought of at the time was Interstellar Pig. Andrew must be inextricably linked to a Fate of Mafia.

Ants

Recently Andrew put his retainer in his mouth and felt something odd. You know the feeling: "Oh no!" You think. "My retainer is off by a fraction of a degree and now it is moving my teeth in all sorts of insane directions!" Andrew popped it out and looked at it. He saw the source of his problem: there were ants crawling all over his retainer.

This has gone on quite long enough. According to the parents, the Bug Man has already been called and is on his way. I say that it is time to move beyond these diplomatic tactics. I say we kidnap an ant, brainwash it, give it an ant-sized flamethrower and turn it into Ant Rambo. Then he can go back to his little nest and kill everyone Rambo-style. Then when he turns on us we can just squash him.

Planning Ahead

Last night, at about 9:00, I asked Andrew whether he was going to his friends' house the next day.
"Oh, I dunno. I haven't heard back from them," he replied.
"Hold on a minute! There is no way you are going to hear back from your friends before I go to school tomorrow at 8:00! They'll still be asleep!" I replied.
"Well, yeah," he said.
"Well, should I ask for a ride from Luke then? Or are they still sick so I should go home with Alexie?" I said.
"I dunno. I'll know tomorrow," he said.
This is not what I needed. I needed some information. As it turned out, Alexie figured that I was hitching a ride so she was going to leave without me without calling. Of course, it wouldn't make any difference because I discovered upon getting to school that Mom had borrowed my cell phone and never returned it. Great! Just when I need a communication route to both Alexie and Andrew, my cell phone goes missing! What good is a cell phone if it isn't around when you need it?

Anyway, I called home using the courtesy landline at UTC and got all pertinent information. Sheesh. So exhausting. I need to plan for communication crises better.

Crusty Computer

Right now I'm sitting at the internet computer at home that no one uses. There are two computers that access the internet, both in Mom's room. Sometimes when Mom doesn't want to go to the trouble of using the other computer, she uses this one. Since it doesn't load websites, she quickly gives up. Recently, she called Alexie and Andrew down to take a look at the computer and figure out why the internet is running so slowly. Both of them had no idea what was going on and moaned endlessly about their uselessness. (Teenagers tend to plead ignorance whenever their parents want them to work. I know since I am one.) They aren't scientists, you see, rocket or otherwise.

Any good scientist, or any person with an ounce of logic, would have noticed that the internet will work if you are logged in to the username Teaching Tools, but not if you are logged into David. The reason? The username David has dozens of viruses and updater agents running every second you are logged in. The viruses don't slow down the computer because of sinister design, they slow it down because there are so many of them clogging up the computer's circuits. The reason I know this is when I log off of "David" so that I can use the internet, half a dozen programs with names like "BLGOFGupdateragent.exe" and "COMPUTERAIDS.exe" all have problems shutting down and so therefore each pop up errors that require you to press "end now" to move through them all. If I were trying to fix the problem, I'd start there. It is a problem when your computer is so old, even its viruses are decrepit.

Driving

Today Andrew is off to get his Driver's Permit. I asked Dad if I could get my license today, but the weather shut me down by icing all the roads. Curses. I don't think ice is all that dangerous and I could really impress my proctor by driving safely in dangerous conditions, but Dad would not hear it. Now Andrew and I will have our permits at the same time and I will have to suffer the inferiority complex of having a younger brother at the same stage of driving as I am. O me miseram!

Top Topics

After much clicking and studying, I've found out my top five topics of blogging this year. The winner was Andrew with 28, which is unfortunate because I usually badmouth Andrew in posts about him. The next three topics all clocked in at 27: Alexie (posts where Alexie comes in and says something either snide or hilarious), Mom (posts where Mom comes in and either tell me something I don't want to hear or worries about me too much), and School (whining). The last one, Politics with 26 posts, was probably bolstered by my trip to North Carolina as 16 of my 26 posts on this topic were written there. I have 223 posts overall since I started on March 30th. This amounts to about 5.78 posts a week, or 0.83 posts a day. Although I would have been much happier to have a round 1.00 posts a day, I guess I'll just have to make do with my lack of insight. (or I could just publish 77 more posts, including this one.)

Douglas Has Arrived

Status Report: After four days delay for snow and a missed flight in Texas, Douglas has arrived. Heather is much quieter this morning: She's probably more talkative online than in person when it comes to Douglas. Alexie has not come downstairs yet. Since Douglas was lain over in Texas for a while, he bought Emily a Sheriff's Badge, which is really great since we got Bang for Christmas and Emily and Luke have been really loving it. Dad loves it and plays it whenever we have five players, but the older kids minus myself are uncooperative and unenthusiastic. The problem is that Bang is not a game for kids under the age of five and the subtle intrigue often proves elusive for kids with the mental capacity of Emily, Luke, and Andrew. Maybe Douglas would play...

Master of Interrogation

Yesterday while I was preparing my college lunch and Andrew was cleaning breakfast a great ruckus suddenly broke out upstairs.

"Hooray! Luke has tied his first shoe!" Heather exclaimed. Then Mom got excited and made an even bigger deal out of it and the upstairs rooms became very calamitous.

"Mark my words," Andrew said to me, "Luke brought an already tied shoe upstairs and told Heather he had tied it." Ha ha. Good luck, I thought. Every time I have sufficient proof that one of my younger brothers is lying, he will deny it and Mom accepts his word for it. Anyways Luke meandered downstairs as happy as a clam. "Hey Luke," said Andrew, "Did you take an already-tied shoe upstairs and tell Heather you had tied it?"

"How did you guess!?" Luke squealed. Andrew shrugged. Luke walked away. The end.

Really, nothing ever came from this encounter but a blog post.

Class Schedule is Up!

Finally! The day you've all been waiting for! The day when the classes offered in Spring '10 at UTC are announced! Hurrah! I've gone ahead and made two potential battle plans. When I showed them to Andrew he said that I didn't need to choose immediately, that I could wait until Mom comes home. Shows what he knows. Ha. Here are the plans with the classes listed in the order that I take them on that day.

Plan 1:
MWF: (starting at 8:00) Scientific Writing, Microbiology, Latin. Microbio lab on Monday, Physics lab on Wednesday.
TT: (starting at 12:00) Physics, Western Civ

Plan 2:
MWF: (starting at 8:00) Anatomy, Scientific Writing, Latin. Physics Lab on Wednesday
TT: (starting at 8:00) Western Civ, Physics. Anatomy Lab on Tuesday.

Both plans clock in at seventeen hours.

Conflicting messages

Yesterday we had a really good sermon at our church on 1 Samuel 16. I think it was 16, anyway. It was the chapter where David is anointed. Anyways, the main idea of the sermon was that 1 Samuel was not a self-help manual. If you are asking the question "Am I a David person or a Saul person?" you are asking the wrong question. God's plan is bigger than you. It's for you, but it's not about you and it fortunately does not depend on you. 1 Samuel points more to the king we need rather than the people we should be. Really good sermon. Agreed completely. Anyways, my kid brother got back from Sunday School and naturally our parents asked him what he learned in Sunday School. Andrew said that his teacher wanted the class to find something in David to emulate every week. (Although in 1 Samuel 16 the only traits of David that are shown were that he was ruddy and handsome.) Wait a minute! Wasn't that the question our pastor told us not to ask? And this was Senior High Sunday School! I think this was probably due to a communication failure between the pastor and the youth pastor. It'll probably be cleared up by next week. Hopefully.

Andrew's Hat

I was sitting at my laptop when I heard a ruckus down the hall. Grace and her friend had stolen Andrew's hat and were running around trying to keep it away from him. Now, as Andrew said multiple times while pleading with them to give it back, (he could have caught up with them and beat them up pretty easily, but he didn't because he was a gentleman.) there was no reason for them to steal it. It has no value at all, it is the most putrid thing I've ever seen, and it would take them a week to get the smell of their hands. Well after a lot of noise Grace and her friend finally managed to rip it. It doesn't look much like a hat anymore. It looks more like a cootie catcher now. As Andrew mourned his hat, his one friend, his precious family heirloom, Grace's friend said, "Well, it wasn't a very important hat."

Cool Blast

Recently we've been having deodorant troubles. Andrew and I have apparently been smelling bad or something. Andrew says that it is because the deodorant has been too weak and I think it is just because we don't shower consistently enough. Anyway, apparently Mom decided to assume the best of her sons (always a mistake) and told Dad to buy us stronger deodorants. So now I smell like a Cool Blast and Andrew smells Fresh. Since Andrew will probably not accompany this with a lifestyle change (showering) it will probably not work. I intend to shower EVERY MORNING, ha. Starting tomorrow.

5+5 Summit!

Something weird happened last night while the Three Musketeers were eating ice cream. (That would be Duncan, Andrew, and David, for those who aren't familiar with McPherson Terminology.) Suddenly, Andrew, who had been staring at my shirt for some time which read "If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything. SUMMIT!", shouted "5+5! SUMMIT!"

"What?" I asked, figuring that Andrew was acting weird again.

"5+5!!" GRIIIN. "SUMMIT!"

It was like reading a convoluted dying message by a professor who is trying to tell you both the murderer's name and his method in one word.

"My God, Duncan, you are SO stupid!" said David, who might I point out, took the name of the Lord his God in vain on the sabbath, thus breaking two commandments in one sentence. Three if you count Jesus' spiel on to insult your brother is to murder him. And he probably wasn't exactly honoring his father and his mother either!

"What? What?" I said looking back and forth at their two demented grins.

"Everyone knows the answer to this question! It's ten!" David said.

"Huh?"

"5+5! Sum! It!" David said.

So, as you can see, it was just Andrew being weird again.

Wake-up call

"Breakfast time, guys," said Andrew, slamming open the door.

"Alright, Alright. I'm up," I said, because all my brothers have a tendency to repeat themselves if they think I haven't heard them.

"Oh, not you Duncan. You can sleep," Andrew said. That made me pretty suspicious, but I shrugged if off thinking, if Mom gets mad at me I can always tell her that Andrew told me I could sleep in.

Twenty minutes later, Connor and Luke slammed open the door, clapping their hands with every step they took, and then staging an extremely loud pseudo-conversation. In between stomps on their faces, they managed to spit out that they had wanted to wake me up. (I had assumed as much FYI, and I'm just kidding about the stomping part, I just glowered at them.)

Now, I have no idea why Andrew wanted me to sleep and the kids wanted me awake, and why the kids thought it would be better to wake me in an obnoxious manner than just saying "Hey Duncan, it's time to get up." Even if they weren't sent by Mom to wake me up, they could say they were and I would be too tired to know the difference. So it was a very poorly executed plan.

P.S. Upon arriving downstairs Andrew said and I quote, "*gaaaasp* He Liiiiives!" These pieces are not falling into place.

2D vs. 3D

It seems that whenever I ask Andrew about a game I'm working on, he always has the same objection to it. I used to make all my programs in 2D because it is infinitely easier so Andrew would always complain "Why is it in 2D? It'd be so much more exciting in 3D" Recently I created a game for Luke, my brother, to teach him math facts and his chief complaint (besides his gripe that Luke wouldn't want to play an educational game so I was wasting my time) was "what's wrong with 2D?" Well, I don't know Andrew. You tell me.

Life in general

Yawn, it's morning. Life goes on as usual. Mom is teaching, that's what she's always doing. Andrew is being taught, per usual. I can hear him reciting his Shakespeare part. Mom just called Lexie and reminded her to do class with Emily. Any second, she'll walk in and ask me where Luke is and whether he's finished with his math. Heather is still asleep, and she's probably still mad. I told her over and over that I didn't wipe snot on her bag, which is true, but she doesn't listen. (How's that for a weird statement. It's a long story so I won't bother boring you with it. Just be assured, I did not do anything so morbidly disgusting.) I think Luke is now asking Mom a question. That'll speed up the Mom-comes-looking-for-Duncan process. Looks like I've got to go. I can't put off teaching Luke any longer.

Washington D.C.

I arrived in Washington D.C. a few hours ago. Ta-da! Here I am. One thing I learned quickly is that the entire thing is greatly democratized. Everything runs on clean energy and the democrat work ethic has permeated most walks of life. For example, we went to a pool where after 45 minutes of work, a life guard would take 15 minutes of break when no one could get in the pool. Dad had strong opinions on the issue.

Speaking of politics, I found out what class I'm taking next semester to fill up my last three hours. POLS at 5:30-8:00 on Tuesday. Andrew needs the computer now, so I'm scramming.

Something Odd

Alright so something odd happened this morning. First Emily walked into the room and shouted "Breakfast Time!" This isn't odd because Emily is often sent up to wake everyone up for breakfast. Andrew is sent more often because he's always awake before everyone else and is readily available for parent exploitation, but I digress. She then followed it up by saying "There are doughnuts!" This isn't odd either because you never know when there will be doughnuts because you never know when Dad will buy them because you never know when they will be on sale. So it's like, whatever. Then Grace barged in and shouted "There are no doughnuts nor is it breakfasttime!" This one took me a while to sort out. I finally figured from all the shouting that Grace and Emily were doing that Emily wanted to play Pokemon with the boys and Grace wanted to make sure we could all sleep by yelling at Emily. Yes, the kids have played a weird self-designed board game about Pokemon obsessively for a couple days now. Dad has even outlawed it. Now that's odd.

Anyways, Emily ran off crying to Mom who shouted up the stairs that it WAS breakfasttime and there WERE doughnuts. And it was true. The end.

Hello? Testing, Testing, 1 2 3

I'm just a stupid blog post that was scheduled to post later than I was written. La la la la la.

Hey! I'm going to Psychotic Fun today! Yahoo! I don't know why it is called Psychotic Fun, though. I'll know when I get there.

Hm. I had a story about socks and Andrew saying something stupid, but I can't remember it now. So that blog post dies.

Uh-oh. School time with Luke. Got to go.